The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is looking closely at air show approvals following the fatal crash of a Grumman Mallard into the Swan River in Perth earlier this year.

Mallard VH-CQA was part of an air display on 26 January when it stalled mid turn and crashed into the water, killing both occupants.

In an update to the investigation issued last week, the ATSB said they could find no sign of pilot incapacity or defect in the aircraft that would account for the crash.

"The investigation has not identified any evidence to indicate that pilot incapacitation or aircraft serviceability were contributing factors to the collision with water," the ATSB stated in the update.

"Further analysis around the aircraft performance and operational factors, as well as the review of the planning, approval and oversight of the air display is ongoing."

During the investigation ATSB has examined the sequence of events leading up to the occurrence, aspects of the air display coordination, as well as the regulations, procedures and guidance relating to CASA-approved air displays, including:

- approval process for the Perth Australia Day Sky Show going back several years and for other air display events across Australia

- air displays applications from this and other events

- CASA's Air Display Safety and Administrative Arrangements manual in use at the time and the revised version published earlier this month

- surveillance and oversight of air displays as a whole

The ATSB has also examined the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch report into the crash of Hawker Hunter G-BXFI at Shoreham in August 2015, which killed 11 bystanders.

________________________________________Just came across this link. At last; Aviation Safety Digests are available in digital form. Thanks to someone special who has done the hard yards to complete this wonderful achievement. Fill your boots

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9wo9qzdor...0LzdqhYva?dl=0

Show your support and appreciation, download and enjoy some real, down to earth, first class reporting and commentary on aviation ‘events’, incidents and accidents from folk who actually had a clue (or two). Not certain to whom our thanks must be directed, but to whoever you are.

I’m not going to write a whole heap of comment here – I’m not; including the speed of taxi. One pilot at least can be only be grateful that the developers had not built a DFO close in. We may however ask one simple question, who the hell taught this guy to fly multi engine aircraft?

I’m not going to write a whole heap of comment here – I’m not; including the speed of taxi. One pilot at least can be only be grateful that the developers had not built a DFO close in. We may however ask one simple question, who the hell taught this guy to fly multi engine aircraft?

Having watched the video a few times now, I'm wondering if the initial footage hasn't been sped up....? It certainly looks that way to me on the first part of the takeoff roll..
Could be wrong, of course!

Philip McCarter said his son Darcy, 23, was working as a pilot in the Top End and was on board with a second pilot, aged 33 and also from Queensland, when the Cessna 210 crashed shortly after taking off from Darwin on Monday afternoon.

"Many of you will already know, but we lost out beautiful boy Darcy yesterday," Mr McCarter said.

"He was flying out of Darwin to Elcho Island, where he was based as a pilot serving the local community.

Quote:"As you can imagine we are all absolutely heartbroken and cannot believe this has happened. We have lost our darling boy and brother to Ella. We can't imagine our lives without him and love him with all our hearts.

"We love you. I am empty."

The plane was also carrying the body of a deceased Yolngu man, who the ABC understands was being taken back to Elcho Island, off the coast of East Arnhem Land, for a traditional funeral.

"This pilot has flown my family and I multiple times from Gove to Elcho and has always worked with a good heart and always respectful towards a lot of Yolngu people from West and East of Arnhem Land," she posted on Facebook.

There was an outpouring of grief and support on Mr McCarter's Facebook page in memory of his son.

Quote:"[As] one of the many pilots who operate in the NT out of Darwin, I pass on our sincere condolences. Every day these young pilots fly countless hours in the hope to one day be in the left-hand seat with an airline or similar," wrote Duncan Terry.

"We were devastated to hear of incident and loss of Darcy."

Chris van Elsen remembered Darcy as "an impressive young guy who always seemed to have a smile on his face and he made a point of saying hello every time he saw you", while Clare Dal Bon said he had "the kindest heart and his happiness was infectious".

Air Frontier owner Geoff Hunt said everyone connected with the business was "absolutely shocked by this tragedy" and that with the loss of "two highly regarded colleagues", aero operations had been immediately suspended.

"We are deeply saddened by yesterday's tragic event, with the loss of two precious lives," he said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

"Everyone connected with Air Frontier is absolutely devastated by what has happened and our hearts and love go to the families of our two pilots."

He said Air Frontier had been in contact with the families to offered them support.

Quote:"They were experienced, professional pilots and delightful young men I am proud to call colleagues," he said.

"The aircraft was carrying the remains of a respected Yolngu man to his ancestral burial place. We express our deepest apologies and heartfelt sympathies to the man's relatives for the additional grief this has created."

A local dairy farmer who spoke to the ABC said he called in the suspected crash after a worker on his farm saw what he thought was a light plane go down in nearby forest.
The farmer, Pieter Mostert, who is also the fire control officer for the Redmond fire brigade, said he heard a plane go over his property on the outskirts of Redmond, about 400 kilometres south-east of Perth, about 11:00am.

One of his workers saw it go into the north-east corner of Mount Lindesay National Park, he said.

"My wife heard the explosion from up [at] the house, which is 700 metres up from the dairy," he said.

"My co-worker had full sight of it."

Mr Mostert said the terrain where the plane is thought to have gone down was steep and heavily forested.

"I believe they may be hampered with the access to get into the site, and it also could be difficult because [of] the communications in our area," he said.

Busy time for the Hi-Viz crew.- I make it five more serious recent events:-

2x C210.
1x Be20.
2x C310.

I wonder, is it worth looking a little deeper than ‘normal’. It has been a bad year for serious accidents, perhaps the seeds sown in previous years are beginning to bear fruit. Who knows, but neither the ATSB’s fatuous reports or CASA’s ridiculous rule sets seem to have cured the body count. Are we still the ‘safest’ in the world?

12:00amANTHONY KLANRestrictions on weather information to incoming flights on Lord Howe has been linked to an ­accident.

Weather report restriction linked to Lord Howe air crash

An intervention by the aviation safety regulator restricting a veteran harbour master from providing crucial weather information to incoming flights at Lord Howe Island has been linked to a serious ­accident.

Clive Wilson has intricate knowledge of the treacherous weather patterns and cross winds on the remote island and for decades radioed this knowledge to incoming flights. His volunteer work was encouraged by airlines, the RAAF and air ambulance services.

But three years ago the Civil Aviation Safety Authority told Mr Wilson, who had been manning the radio since 1956, it would not renew his licence to provide detailed weather observations to pilots unless he spent $20,000 on a meteorological training course.

On Friday morning last week a 13-seater twin-turboprop King Air 200 carrying five people was seriously damaged when it ploughed into the tarmac, ­destroying a propeller and damaging a wing, in an accident so ­serious experts said the plane would most likely have to be ­returned to the mainland by ship to be repaired.

The previous evening, in similar weather, a medical evacuation flight radioed Mr Wilson for ­advice and was told it was too dangerous to land.

It circled for more than an hour before returning to the mainland.

Unlike air force and medevac pilots, many flight operators — including Port Macquarie-based Eastern Air Services, which had been flying the King Air commercially into Lord Howe since ­December — no longer radio Mr Wilson for advice on conditions on the ground.

Mr Wilson said this was in part because many pilots were no longer aware he provided the service — his name and contact ­details were removed from the ­region’s pilot guide at the insistence of the Lord Howe Island airport administration amid the spat with CASA.

“That morning (of the accident) the wind was gusting up to 50 knots and my respectful advice would have been abandon what you are doing and go home,” Mr Wilson told The Weekend Australian yesterday.

“My normal conversation in those circumstances would have been ‘the conditions are difficult and unpredictable and there is a high-level of risk in attempting to approach Lord Howe under these conditions’.”

Former Qantas pilot Bill Hamilton said the action by CASA was a “textbook case of mindless bureaucracy trumping common sense” and it was “putting lives at risk”.

“Almost all of the rest of the world would see Clive’s efforts as essential but we’re a country where compliance with ratbag regulations take precedence over commonsense,” Mr Hamilton said.

An Australian Transport ­Safety Bureau spokesman confirmed a King Air 200 turboprop aircraft had lost control and had been involved in an accident on Lord Howe Island at 7.20am on October 27.

“During final approach, the aircraft encountered a strong downdraft, resulting in a hard landing with substantial damage to the right wing and propeller,” the spokesman said.

“The ATSB reviewed the incident and is not investigating.”

There were five people on board, none of whom was injured.

A CASA spokesman said the regulator would not investigate as it usually only reviewed accidents that were more serious — where injuries or deaths had occurred as a result of systemic mechanical or other problems.

Eastern Air Services did not return calls yesterday.

On its website the company was advertising seven-day holiday packages from Port Macquarie to Lord Howe Island — aboard the King Air 200 — ­between October and December from $1199 twin-share.
& comment from Sandy:

“Graham I don’t think they would want a posting to the Island, much more cosy right where they are in their 7.5 hour working days, RDOs, generous super and regular wintertime seminars in Far North QLD (or OS). It’s just great! So easy right where they are now.

For example they’ve broken all records for the longest running make work program in the bureaucratic history of Can’tberra, would you believe 30 years to rewrite the aviation rules and still not finished! What a joke, except the latest tranche of new rules are a “mess” (quote CASA Chairman Boyd). A mess that’s devasted General Aviation. with the loss of thousands of jobs.

By the way Graham the Civil Aviation Safety Authority are not “Department”, they are an independent statutory Commonwealth body doing willy nilly whatever takes their fancy with our money! Every now and then they write a Statement of Expectations for the Minister to sign. Yes, that’s it! The CEO is on $600,000, what a bonanza.

As regards the Transport Safety Bureau it would seem that nowadays they just wait for people to be seriously injured or killed before investigating!

Your taxes at work; of course the ATSB wouldn’t want to say something adverse about their former work buddies in the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

Recently the only telling oversight of CASA and ATSB is from the Senate Estimates Transport Committee; for what many in the GA industry see as highly inappropriate collusion, watch that space ... Alex in the Rises. “

Hmm...I note even the 'Klan man' seems to understand the difference between wx (actual) reports and forecasts (TAFOR)...

Meanwhile CASA are more concerned about CYA and liability before aviation safety - UDB!

One person has died and another has been critically injured in a helicopter crash at Hobart airport.

A witness has told police he saw a helicopter come "down hard" on grass about 5 metres from the runway.

It is unclear if it was taking off or landing.

In a statement, Tasmania Police said emergency services were responding to the "serious crash" at the airport's Cambridge site, north-east of Hobart.

"It is understood this incident is impacting on airport operations, including commercial flights," police said.

Jetstar passengers have been told there will likely be no more flights out of Hobart this evening.

Passengers onboard a Qantas Link flight which was turned back before take-off reported seeing ambulances on the runway.

Fire trucks and ambulances are on the scene.

ABC employee Anne Cordiner, who is at the airport, said "there were a couple of hundred people" waiting in the departure terminal.

"People are pretty calm. We've just been told that our Jetstar flight that was due to leave for Melbourne at six o'clock has been cancelled and we've been asked to go through the check-in desk and rebook on other flights," she said.

[img=0x0]https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/5f91ca65ef3233adc982dc00ae6da579/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
A helicopter crash at Hobart Airport involving two people has been described as “serious”, with debris on the runway and flights thrown into chaos.

It is understood one person is dead and another critically injured.

“Police and emergency services are responding to a serious helicopter crash at Hobart Airport with two people involved,” a police statement said a short time ago.

“It is understood this incident is impacting on airport operations, including commercial flights.”

Passengers at the airport have been told that flights in and out of the city had been suspended and reported seeing fire trucks and ambulances on the runway.

“It must be pretty bad, I’m looking at some of the staff and they are crying — it is not nice,” Scott McGinley, a passenger waiting for a flight, told The Mercury newspaper. Passengers at the airport, east of Hobart, said the crash appeared to be about 500 metres from the terminal.

Helicopter Crash at Hobart Airport. Picture: Luke bowden

The cause of the crash is unknown. There has been recent controversy over Hobart’s airspace management.

Australia’s air safety regulator last year decided against any major change to Hobart’s air space, prompting claims it was courting tragedy and continuing a cover-up over Tasmania’s bungled $6 million radar system.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority in August last year released the findings of a review of Hobart’s airspace, ordered after a series of stories in The Australian about failures in the state’s radar system, known as TASWAM.

The Australian in 2015 revealed TASWAM was not being used to control aircraft to the ground; only as an addition tool for local tower controllers providing “procedural separation”, which relies on visual observation and communication with pilots.

This newspaper also revealed that failures in TASWAM — including planes disappearing from radar screens for minutes on end — were occurring almost monthly and that air traffic controllers had described the system as “unreliable”.

CASA responded to the criticism, and a projected 30% to 40% increase in passengers into Hobart over the next five years due to a tourism boom, by ordering an Office of Airspace Regulation review of Hobart airspace.

However, the report released last year rejected calls by pilots and Airlines of Tasmania for TASWAM to be used as they believed it was intended: to guide aircraft to the runway, rather than to only 8,500 ft as occurs currently.

Instead, the report recommended continuing with local air tower controllers using procedural separation below 8,500 feet, describing this as “appropriate”.

This was despite the report noting 16.6 per cent growth in aircraft movements at Hobart Airport between 2012 and 2015, and an 86 per cent increase at the adjacent Cambridge Airport in the six years to 2015. The Hobart tower handles both airports.

The report did recommend continued redesign of flight routes in and out of Hobart and did occur.

A 33-year-old pilot remains in a serious but stable condition at Royal Hobart Hospital as aviation authorities continue to investigate a helicopter crash at Hobart Airport that killed flight instructor Roger Corbin.

Inspector John Ward said the drop from a height of about 200 metres had a devastating effect.

"It appears to me it's pretty much broken in half, certainly been a write-off. It's come from 200 metres to the ground," he said.

The wreckage of the helicopter, which belongs to charter company RotorLift, has been taken to a secure area.

The crash was witnessed by many people at the terminal and four people, including two ground staff, gave statements.

Hobart Airport was shut down last night after the accident, disrupting the travel plans of hundreds of passengers.

Three inbound flights were diverted to Launceston and the passengers bussed to Hobart.

Three outgoing flights were cancelled. Airport operations returned to normal this morning.

The Australian Air Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said it had sent two investigators to probe the cause of the crash:

Quote:"The ATSB is investigating the accident involving a AS350BA Squirrel helicopter, registered VH-BAA, that occurred at Hobart Airport, Tasmania on 7 November.
"The helicopter collided with terrain, fatally injuring one of the two persons on board.
"The ATSB deployed a team of two transport safety investigators to the accident site with expertise that includes aircraft operations, engineering and maintenance. While on site, the team will examine the wreckage, gather any recorded data, and interview witnesses."

The ATSB said it would release a preliminary investigation report "in approximately 30 days".

"A final report into the accident may take up to 12 months to complete. However, should a safety issue be identified during the course of the investigation, the ATSB will immediately notify those affected and seek safety action to address the issue."

RotorLift operates the Tasmania Police Rescue Helicopter and has featured in many of the state's major rescue operations.

The company flies about 160 missions each year using the twin-engine Kawasaki BK117 equipped with medical and emergency equipment, enabling it to fly into almost any area in virtually any conditions, day or night.

RotorLift helicopters have also been used in criminal investigations and operations.
The company also offers pilot training courses in a range of helicopters, including night vision goggle courses for pilots and crews.

It offers other services including low-level photography and filming, fruit drying to avoid water damage to crops, frost protection, firefighting, powerline inspections and mapping.

Inspector Ward said the crash would not affect the police force's capacity to respond to emergencies.

"We always have contingency plans in place for these types of things, whether it's something like this or whether it's an illness, and they will be able to maintain core business, daily business, as usual," he said

The ATSB is investigating a hard landing involving a GIE Avions de Transport Regional ATR72, VH-FVZ, at Canberra Airport, Australian Capital Territory, on 19 November 2017.
During approach to runway 35, the aircraft encountered windshear. The aircraft landed hard, and the tail skid and underside of the rear fuselage contacted the runway. The aircraft sustained substantial damage. There were no reported injuries.

As part of the investigation, the ATSB has inspected the aircraft and obtained the flight data recorders, will interview the flight crew and gather additional information.
A final investigation report will be released following the conclusion of the ATSB’s investigation.

Therefore the fact that this 'accident' was not reported by the MSM would suggest that there was no politican onboard and the pax were way too busy extracting their shorts from their asses while praying to God that they were still alive to bother reporting the incident to the MSM -

13:26 on a Sunday afternoon ? - no polly's at that time, no jurnos either.

At least this one is on the ATSB's doorstep, you could hardly get closer without a fatal.
Should be able to wrap this one up pronto, (helps the statistics for the Annual Report), and no travel expenses or any other "resources issues" to slow things down.